I ask this sincerely because this is the mindset that I've noticed has made me the happiest and I'm currently looking for a new place that will pay me more. I've been happier when earning more and working less. I don't really care about what I do while at work or whether I'm using a hot technology or what the company does. This doesn't mean I care about what I'm doing. I do care and put effort in during the work day and I've always had high praise from managers.
Unfortunately, in order to distinguish themselves, pretty much every company wants to market themselves as such a great place to work and of course they ask the question "Why do you want to work here?" when for me the honest answer would be "I would want to work there if you pay the most and I can stick to a max office time of 8 hours per day." But I play along and say generic things about the product and people and show interest.
I find meaning in my life outside of work and more money helps me achieve my outside goals which makes me happy.
As you mention, I do care and put effort. I don't have things coming back to haunt me. I have quite a bit of experience. And I do things fast if I need to. I just don't do them fast just for the sake of it, so I try to be seen as "meeting the targets" as well as "meeting expectations". Because if you are exceeding expectations you are really being underpaid. Well that's my view and my opinion after quite a bit of decades.
Also meet targets your boss cares about. Don't be a miracle worker, you have to manage expectations. In large organizations I can always point to other teams shortcomings, or organizational inefficiencies as reasons for slow progress and delays.
I don't think interviewers are specifically looking for fake in preference to genuine, but they perhaps tend to be satisfied with appearance as an estimator of substance.
A job is just a job, and a business is just a business. Mistaking either for anything more will lead to a paradox.
Businesses just need extremely specific work to get done. Jobs are ways to get people to do that work in exchange for money.
If you're flipping burgers at McDonald's, you don't reinvent their burger. If you're assembling iPhones at Foxconn, you never add your personal touch. You do what is expected of you, and if you'd rather be doing something else, you need to find a job that matches. And that's it.
And most importantly, if you got paid, you're being appreciated. If you need someone to pat you on the back, know that the business is paying someone to pat you on the back because you are deemed to work better that way, and it's called overhead. It's why you're being paid less than someone who doesn't need pats on the back (probably the guy patting you on the back). Same with dangling carrots.
Unfortunately, there is so much more to being human. So it truly is up to each individual person to fill in their voids. A true professional is defined by someone who is capable of remaining satisfied while accomplishing demanding work.
I've found being senior enough to actually be (slightly) respected is nice in that you can spend time cleaning if you know how to sell it (I just reduced X, which translates to $$$), making your day-to-day easier.
I know that this is the right idea, but it is so painful to build something you know is stupid and waste of time. Its impposible to go home happy knowing what you are building is crap.
I agree, but only if people want to pay "professionally" for it. Additionally, there can be problems with this if you're working someplace where your job is potentially at risk if the project fails.
It's very hard to take strategic direction from folks who have golden parachutes in their contracts. Succeed or fail, they'll be OK, but when you can see the project is DOA, you now have to spend some time preparing to look for the next job/engagement/etc.
I realize not all situations are like this, but have seen enough to understand it happens. You can be professional, but also have to understand that sometimes your best interests and the project's best interests may not line up, and plan accordingly.
I learned the hard way to always be prepared to
move on.
It is quite often out of your control (e.g. the company is in trouble and they layoff your entire department or cancel the project you're working on) and even in socialist Europe there isn't really such A thing as job security (outside of the public sector anyway).
Even huge succesful companies like amazon/microsoft/google/etc sometimes have layoffs. Or they become less succesful for whatever reason you couldn't predict ahead of time and then have layoffs. Or they merge/buy another company and get rid of redundant/duplicate positions.
I do as well, but it is always a bit of a conflict in the back of my mind wrt feeling 100% dedicated to someone else's project. I want to feel that I'm committed 100%, but always have to be preparing for "this will not work out, what is plan B?".
I get what you're saying here (I think). Part of being a professional is putting your own ego aside and not making it all about yourself.
However, a true professional doesn't actually obey an employer the way a simple employee does. And in that regard, regrettably, we software developers really aren't professionals. We can take a personal stand, but there is no professional code of ethics that we serve that stands above the client or employer, at least not in the sense that it does for physicians or lawyers.
It isn't really our "fault", though we could organize better. Professionals belong to associations that have formal standing with government. In many cases, they can't "report to" a person who is not a member of their profession. They must serve their clients, but they are empowered, by law, to stand up to their clients and refuse to breach the ethics of their profession.
That's what happens when you have strong plumbing and electricians unions. They convince the legislate to legislate a form of welfare for their trade.
Small scale plumbing and electrical are tasks a significant chunk of homeowners are perfectly capable of doing without screwing up. It used to be that the majority of homeowners could accomplish these tasks and that was in the days before the Internet.
1. Take on a hobby in your free time.
2. Work for a different company, where developers have more of a stake and help define the product (there are few but they exist).
3. Moving into a "product management" role where you're defining features and requirements, etc.
4. Put your ass on the line and gamble on starting your own company.
However I feel that my experience has indicated that this only works when the brass are present and making such orders. When you're on your own, even when within the context of a organization or team, this is more easily prone to failure.
You talk about them being loftier goals, but maybe they're just different methods to solve different problems.
Anyway, semper fi.
Also, just curious:
> [..] but that's not for me to decide [..] When things go wrong, you either move on or start fixing things [..]
Start fixing things is your own decision or do you wait until someone asks you?
I think that these kinds of experience are behind the word "refactor" being suspicious at some places.
The other issue is that "I am taking initiative" is sometimes euphemism for "I am going to do things my way and don't care to argue with other team members/departments who I expect to obey me anyway by default" power grab which leads to people rejecting changes even as they are right.
This is important, and this is why I'm still unable to let go and treat work as "I'm a tool. I just do what I'm told."
I, like many people in IT, am effectively "end of the line" for our deliverables.
The consequence of inefficiencies isn't "the business makes less money", it's "work bleeds into your personal time".
If things take more time, it's my time. And that makes these issues my problem as well.
http://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
NB: I'm not trying to advocate for it - it works for some teams, but everyone is different.
When things go wrong, you either move on or start fixing things, and that perpetuates your job (hopefully). If things take more time, it is their time. I come in at 8am, leave at 4pm. I don't take my laptop home. I don't work from home. I see their inefficiencies as opportunities for me to spend time on things like learning and experimenting.
But that's me. I get paid enough, I don't need or want to go up the "career ladder". Others may have loftier goals.